Tiger attacks freelance photographer in Mysore

Indian enterprises were flooded with a whopping 14.6 crore malware threats in 2019 - a growth of 48 per cent (year-on-year) compared to 2018, a new report said on Friday.

Manufacturing, BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), education, healthcare, IT/ITES, and the government were the most at-risk industries in the country, said the report from Seqrite, the enterprise arm of Pune-based IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies.

Interestingly, almost a quarter (23 per cent) of the threats were identified through 'Signatureless behaviour-based' detection by Seqrite, indicating how a growing number of cybercriminals were deploying new or previously unknown threat vectors to compromise enterprise security.

"With the latest Seqrite annual threat report, we want to empower CIOs, CISOs, business leaders and all key public stakeholders with the insights they need to combat the growing complexity of the threat landscape," said Sanjay Katkar, Joint Managing Director and CTO, Quick Heal Technologies.

The most prominent trend was the drastic increase in the volume, intensity, and sophistication of cyber-attack campaigns targeting Indian enterprises in 2019.

The rapid integration of IoT devices, BYOD (bring your own device), and third-party APIs into enterprise networks has created newer security vulnerabilities that might go unnoticed until a major breach occurs.

Threat researchers at Seqrite observed several large-scale advanced persistent threats (APT) attacks deployed against organisations in the government sector.

"The entry of nation-states and organised cybercrime cells into the fray is expected to add more complication to this situation and will require Indian government bodies and corporate enterprises to shore up their cyber defence strategies in 2020 and beyond," the report noted.

More alarming, however, was the continued lack of security awareness amongst enterprises and government organisations.

"Unsecured Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Server Message Block (SMB) protocols continued to be targeted through brute-force attacks," said the report.

Spear phishing attack campaigns leveraging Office exploits and infected macros were also used extensively by cybercriminals to gain access to enterprise networks and steal critical data.

"India's digital journey depends on ensuring robust cybersecurity for all stakeholders within the enterprise ecosystem," said Katkar.

The sharp spike should be a cause of concern for CIOs and CISOs in the country, especially given the growing digital penetration within their enterprise networks.

"With network vulnerabilities and potential entry points increasing at a rapid pace, threat actors are expected to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to power their malware campaigns in the future to capitalise on newer attack vectors," the report added.

Washington D.C., Feb 6: An international team of astronomers has found an unusual monster galaxy that existed about 12 billion years ago when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old.

The team of astronomers was led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside.

Dubbed XMM-2599, the galaxy formed stars at a high rate and then died. Why it suddenly stopped forming stars is unclear.

"Even before the universe was 2 billion years old, XMM-2599 had already formed a mass of more than 300 billion suns, making it an ultra massive galaxy," said Benjamin Forrest, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Riverside Department of Physics and Astronomy and the study's lead author.

"More remarkably, we show that XMM-2599 formed most of its stars in a huge frenzy when the universe was less than 1 billion years old and then became inactive by the time the universe was only 1.8 billion years old," Forrest added.

The team used spectroscopic observations from the W. M. Keck Observatory's powerful Multi-Object Spectrograph for Infrared Exploration or MOSFIRE, to make detailed measurements of XMM-2599 and precisely quantify its distance.

The study results appear in the Astrophysical Journal.

"In this epoch, very few galaxies have stopped forming stars, and none are as massive as XMM-2599," said Gillian Wilson, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCR in whose lab Forrest works.

"The mere existence of ultramassive galaxies like XMM-2599 proves quite a challenge to numerical models. Even though such massive galaxies are incredibly rare at this epoch, the models do predict them."

"The predicted galaxies, however, are expected to be actively forming stars. What makes XMM-2599 so interesting, unusual, and surprising is that it is no longer forming stars, perhaps because it stopped getting fuel or its black hole began to turn on. Our results call for changes in how models turn off star formation in early galaxies," the professor stated.

The research team found XMM-2599 formed more than 1,000 solar masses a year in stars at its peak of activity -- an extremely high rate of star formation. In contrast, the Milky Way forms about one new star a year.

"XMM-2599 may be a descendant of a population of highly star-forming dusty galaxies in the very early universe that new infrared telescopes have recently discovered," said Danilo Marchesini, an associate professor of astronomy at Tufts University and a co-author on the study.

"We have caught XMM-2599 in its inactive phase," Wilson said, who led the W. M. Keck Observatory data acquisition
Co-author Michael Cooper, a professor of astronomy at UC Irvine, said this outcome is a strong possibility.

"Perhaps during the following 11.7 billion years of cosmic history, XMM-2599 will become the central member of one of the brightest and most massive clusters of galaxies in the local universe," he said.

"Alternatively, it could continue to exist in isolation. Or we could have a scenario that lies between these two outcomes," he stated.

The study was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Bengaluru, Mar 13: In the wake of fresh cases of Covid-19 reported in Karnataka, Infosys Foundation chairperson Sudha Murty has urged the Karnataka government to take steps to shut malls and theatres, saying the coronavirus multiplies in air-conditioned areas.

In a letter to the government, she said preventive measures should be taken to control the spread of coronovirus before it gets worse.

Murty, who also leads the State government-constituted Karnataka Tourism Task Force, said she has discussed the current situation with Chairman and Executive Director of Narayana Health, Devi Prasad Shetty.

She suggested closure of all schools and colleges with immediate effect, malls, theatres and “all air-conditioned areas where the virus multiplies”, and allow only essential services like pharmacy, grocery and petrol bunks.

“It is not scientifically proven that the virus dies in high temperature,” she said pointing to spread of the virus -- despite heat -- in peak summer in Australia and Singapore, which have “summer all 12 months”.

“I request you to vacate one government hospital with at least 500 - 700 beds for this purpose (to deal with coronavirus cases), which requires oxygen lines and pipes,” she said.

“Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic and CSR arm of software major Infosys, would do the civil work and Devi Shetty has agreed to share resources like medical equipment,” she added.

“We would like to work with the government proactively so that we can prevent this as early as possible,” Sudha Murty said.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus positive cases in Karnataka is five, including the 76-year old man from Kalaburagi who died on Tuesday night.